USA, Rogue Nation, To Biosphere:”You Are Fired!”

Yes, Trump says:”You are fired!” to the biosphere. It is funny to those who have a macabre sense of humor. To this firing, the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Junker replied that Trump didn’t understand things, in particular, the law.

“Europe’s duty is to say: it’s not like that,” Juncker said. “The Americans can’t just leave the climate protection agreement. Mr. Trump believes that because he doesn’t know the details.” Juncker also noted the lengths European leaders had gone to in trying to explain the Paris accord to Trump while in Taormina, Italy, at the G7 summit. “We tried to explain that to Mr. Trump in Taormina in clear German sentences,” Juncker said. “It seems that our attempt failed, but the law is the law, and it must be obeyed. Not everything which is law and not everything in international agreements is fake news, and we have to comply with it.”

Trump pulls out of the Paris Climate accord to, he said, “topursue a new deal which preserves our country”. Several times in his speech, Trump fired broadsides at the city of Paris (obviously the youth, and intellectual dominance of French president Macron rubbed him the wrong way, something not improved when Macron invited Putin at Versailles, the next day, 300 years to the day, after the Czar Peter the Great visited (with his harem) . Russia piously announced, as Xi did, that Russia stayed with Paris.

US Secret Service is not amused. US comedian Kathy Griffin this week.The cut head depicts the quality of the debate in the USA. Instead of advancing constructive solutions, the opposition to Trump is turning to Jihad. I have nothing against smart Jihad for the highest causes. However, this is not what is going-on. Most of the opposition to Trump seems to want to cut off his head, and little else crosses their mind, aside from this burning desire. However the maximal US oil production, and the maximal US fossil fuel burning we are experiencing now, were not caused by Trump, but by previous governance and social behaviors, some generations old. Trump, in more ways than one, depicts the US all too well…

In turn, the preceding comedian’s employer, CNN, chopped her off…

Several times, Trump went on a litany of American cities that “it’s time to put ahead of Paris, France.” Including Pittsburgh, who Trump wants to put ahead of Paris. Pittsburgh voted 80% for Hillary Clinton… Trump’s Paris condemnations were a funny mish mash of French bashing, climate bashing and America First. Actually, I am unfair: Trump was careful not to bash the climate. His argument is, in part, that the Paris accord will make a reduction of temperature corresponding with two weeks of Chinese pollution (besides being false, this is silly, because the Paris Accord was more of a mood than a very precise planning.)

What Trumpists are saying, and there is some validity to it, is that the US reduced its per capita CO2 emissions by 18% from its peak. However, temperature change from Paris according to MIT would be 2/10 of degree Centigrade by 2100, add the exalted Trumpists. Even the Secretary of State, Tillerson, let it be known that he viewed quitting Paris was a mistake, the US would have gotten more by staying inside..

Trump could pull out of the United Nations in ALL environmental matters. In one year. Barring this, pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord will take so long that it will become effective only under the next US President. The Paris Climate Accord was signed by ALL of the planets countries, 197 countries. Except for Syria and Nicaragua. Nicaragua wanted a STRONGER Paris accord, and is expected to sign. Syria had no representation at Paris at the time because of civil war.

All the world’s countries came together on climate. Trump says it does not matter. Tribalism is what counts, and tribalism is pricky. Trump is afraid other countries were going “to laugh” at the USA. Like the average angry domineering chimp, he had to do something crazy to show everybody that nobody laughs at him. (It seems the opposite is happening!)

That seems to be a psychological mistake. All what the US is now saying is that having a rogue nation is a good thing. So does that mean that North Korea is a good thing? The US is also saying it does not mind going rogue. First strike on north Korea?

The USA’s economic and then general dominance has been greatly due to being the world number one user of energy. Why? Because the USA is full of cheap energy, especially oil, and now gas. All these fossil fuels to burn in that good healthy terrestrial air. That made the USA the world’s most powerful nation, literally. That also made the USA the world’s most polluting nation.

Right now the US oil production is the greatest ever. Ever. And it’s still augmenting. Why? Cheap energy. How? Fracking.

Fracking was not a new technology, but it exploded when the price of oil went up to $150 a barril. How did that happen? The Iraq war.

Now what?

The Paris Accord had two faces. One was PC: it was Politically Correct to transfer 100 billion dollars to poor countries, a sort of hush money. Many countries will disappear under the ocean, though, because the other aspect of the paris Accord came short. Under Paris, CO2 emissions would keep on augmenting, at least short term. The danger being that we reach the point where the warming feeds on itself. And we are very close to it; my most catastrophic predictions made in the distant past are now proffered by a few official scientists.

So what to do?

To mitigate the climate crisis, we need a global carbon tax. Anything else is amusement and PC self-serving make-belief.

The problems Trump instill with his rejection of Paris is that he sets a negative mood. However, they have the interest to point out a general mentality in the governing spheres of the USA, which I have long pointed out…

Because Trump didn’t do this alone. Obama was unable to ratify the Paris Accord and weakened it, because there is a long tradition in the USA of “America First”, Devil may care. This, I have long claimed, led to machinations which made both World War One and World War Two possible: had US opposition to fascist germany been made clear, Germany would not have been crazy enough to engage in war the two countries which gave birth to the USA, namely France (twice, directly and indirectly) and Britain. Instead, mood setting ancestors of Trump maneuvered to make Germany believe they would support its craziest ways.

Now we can see the US the way it really has long been: as a rogue nation, ready to anything to gain a bit of greed, here and there. Pathetic, but revealing.

Hope? Yes. Renegotiate, world against the USA, but this time throw a carbon tax into the mix. Trump threw the gauntlet, knights in shining armor will pick it up…

27 Responses to “USA, Rogue Nation, To Biosphere:”You Are Fired!””

You said in one of your remarks, it can be worse. Like what? We have a leader of the world, who neglects​ oppinions of professionals. Who doesn’t base his opinion on evidence, bur follows his personal intuition, based on over simplified view of reality. President who wants to expose his distorted personality of exhibitionalist​, as if leadership was about to attract more and more attention to himself. What other​ decisions can we expect from him? To bomb North Korea, and as response to their nuclear response, to nuke them? Maybe some other crazy act against Iran?
Its tme again to read Alfred Jarry’s King Ubu.

Dear Eugen: I don’t know which “it could be worse” you are reacting to. What is sure is that, in the Silicon Valley, there are thousands of mini, and not so mini Trumps… That’s why it works !!!!! (Dirty little secret… BTW, many of them are heavily involved in Israel hi tech…)

I don’t get the term mini Trump. There is only one Trump, with whom i have a problem, the one who is President of United States. As to Israeli hi tech, i assume you speak about someone specific, who is very pro Trump oriented. You know, everyone has right for his opinion. I’m definitely not responsible for every Israeli, and politically disagree with most of them. (According to the results in elections).

I know the Silicon Valley pretty well. I may mention an event I was just witness of there. I have witnessed plenty of these before. Namely boastful founders and CEOs, let alone investors, or even related authorities (I stay deliberately vague, having being punished enough recently), violate the laws. That’s much how they get ahead. Yes, they may be less powerful than Trump, but they violate laws more. Yes, I know, hard to believe. But I saw many cases, and they get away with it, and the worst is that this is perhaps the main source of power of SV… Yes, again, hard to believe…

What I was saying about Israeli Hi Tech is that the sector is prosperous a lot because of its interaction with the Silicon Valley. (Myself I am ambiguous about Israeli policies; I think, ideally a greater secular Israel should be created, including the Palestinians, but Orthodox Jews would call me a moron…)

The only problem with a carbon tax is that it is a tax, managed by professional politicians, who have mismanaged every fiscal budget in the developed world (leading to debt debt debt). And now they want to raise taxes to correct their manifold errors. I think that’s what Trump is reacting to, the cost. (I hear that Trump does not repay loans to banks, either, and is persona non grata at American banks.) Also, carbon taxes are regressive, allowing rich nations to pollute and poor nations to get poorer. The Paris Accord, with its voluntary nature, was ideal, as far as I can tell.

What we need is a jubilee. What we’ll probably get is war, including the type of punitive trade sanctions you suggest will follow. The republics of the West are failing.

The regressiveness is easy to fix, and is already fixed in Europe for high fuel taxes.
A carbon tax can be made revenue neutral, as Trump and his ilk (are failing to) do with their (non-existing yet) tax reform…
That the West is failing is indeed obvious.
But war has always been good to the USA, that’s the underlying mood…

Carbon tax is not only the most effective economc tool to save the world, but also very justified. Without tax the carbon emissions are subsidised. In market economy everything has to have the right price, free carbon emissions, means free usage of atmosfer. It could stay so, until it was not used up and was unlimited. Not anymore, carbon tax is not a tax at all, it is price to be paid for air, that started to be scarcity.

It’s effective according to my AWE theory, Absolute Worth Energy. Making an industry pay for its real cost is efficient economics. Subsiding to carbon burning industries are of the order of 7 trillion a year, if I remember well… And carbon burning kills around ten million people a year.
So, right, you are right, it’s not a tax, just a usage fee. Maybe I change my semantics according to YOUR suggestion! 😉

He is the top performer of the American pop culture, in which the wrap is all, and there is no place for the essence. All is about the show off, and nothing else. Getting attention is all, doesn’t matter if for a good cause or a bad one. To provoke is all you need.
It is the instant culture, where exists only the immediate and now, without any consideration of the future, and where the past is also erased immediately​.
After D.T. being so successful by playing the role of king of this culture, believes everything is about good show and good performer.
You get attention? You got audience? You won. You have done something real and no one knows about it? You lost.
D.T. is a perfect presentation of what America is about. It is about the MacDonald and Coca-Cola culture, the Hollywood and mega-performing Taylor Swift (who the hell is she? The new top singer dancer, who doesn’t know how to dance or how to sing, but gets attention of millions and this is what counts. Tomorrow nobody will remember, she ever existed). This is the culture of cheerleader girls, and “I love you, i love you too” culture. Fake commercials, fake education, fake money, fake prizes for every fake achievement, fake flattering in every aspect of the life, and eventually​ what a surprise, a fake President.

With a fake brain… However, even though, superior to the Clinton competition! Not to Sanders, but Sanders didn’t go dirty…Whereas Clinton did, so won…
Anyway, I agree with your analysis. Yet, in any case, electing a monarch can’t end well…

Plato had solution 2000 years ago. But to few understood him and so Marx. Then created USSR and used the Pltonian term communism wrongly. What an absurd. But existence is about absurd. So is Donald the Great. We are probably the last creatures on the Earth who refuse to accept absurd as a ultimate reality.

The crazed .maniac has turned the whole planet against the US. Nice! Why do you think he did that, just because he wants to look superior? And why did he keep on talking about ‘Paris, France’??? Like France profited personally from the Paris Accord? Is that true? Or is it another furious lie from that primitive barbarian?

No France did not personally profit, except as job well done (the Paris Accord). As goals are self determined in the Paris accord, there was no reason to pull out of it… Trump could have just changed the goal posts. No, he wanted to make the point he was a rogue…

The crazed .maniac has turned the whole planet against the US. Nice! Why do you think he did that, just because he wants to look superior? And why did he keep on talking about ‘Paris, France’??? Like France profited personally from the Paris Accord? Is that true? Or is it another furious lie from that primitive barbarian?

Let’s see the bright side of Donald the Greats doing. He is intensively​ working on​the destruction of US political system, based on corrupting people with fake promises presented to them by professional fakers, called presentators, brand and image creators, etc. In one word highly paid marketers, who are paid by donators of billions of dollars to the political process. Donald the Great brought​ all this to the extreme. This is why a decent independent candidate can’t win the election. As to Hegelian dialectic, a reaction will come to all this. So Donald the Great will eventually destroy all this. Or am i fooling myself?

Right now, the Republicans are winning so-called by-elections. In Montana, the Rep punched a Guardian journalist, broke his glasses (both probably deserved), got charged with assault, and won the election the next day.
You are fooling yourself. Many are fooling themselves…
Even people like me are exasperated. For example, many on the “Left” have organized rabid campaigns against me, last being Google (see my essay of last Sunday). I was called terrible things, I am banned, etc.
This is all on the “left”… However, I am MUCH MORE LEFT than they are!!! Sanders has been accused by that same “left” to be a Russian agent… The truth? They are on the right of Trump!!!!! Now, with the real Trump in command, they have to really adopt leftist causes, but they didn’t yet….
The climate thing is much ado about nothing, the Paris Accord was a PC smokescreen, and the Donald knows it (it didn’t pretend in his conference, for a second that the CO2 crisis was not real, BTW>…)

Trump is a gift. I know dozens of US citizens, and also world citizens, who didn’t even knew what politics were, and cared even less, who now give me impassioned lessons about fascism!!!!!!!!!!! To meeeee, the world’s fascism specialist!!!!!!!!!! It’s delightful, especially when they call me racist and a Trump supporter (I am neither, having been venomously critical of Trump for 30+ years, and having a multiracial, tri continental family…)

Put that in your pancake and smoke it!! 😉
He is very short on morals, so i pay no mind to him. He will do what his insecurities dictate much as a bull charges into a China shop. Creative destruction will yield what is needed.

While I have no intention of defending Trump, he has a point in that Paris is not going to solve the problem. (Although for Trump, since he doesn’t acknowledge there is a problem, that is strange logic.)

I am also unconvinced that a carbon tax will do much, at least by itself. All the politicians will do is spend it. If you look at Europe, the petrol tax is huge, but the roads are still smothered in cars and trucks. Sure, some of the poorer people will drive less, but not enough to make a serious difference. The price elasticity is just wrong for this to work well. It might work if the taxes were solely invested into moves to reduce greenhouse emissions, or some other counter, but give politicians a heap of money and guess what? They spend it on things to get themselves elected, not for the good of civilisation.

Right, and I made the same point. The Paris agreement is more of a celebration of the need to do something. Each country fixes its own goals and can change them. Thus Trump is just saying: I am a rogue, look at me. Well, he is trying to comfort his base. The way the investigations are going in Washington, he needs it! It’s becoming imaginable he could be impeached before the 2 years necessary to give ten to Pence… Hahahaha…

That the carbon tax is spent or not, and how, is entirely irrelevant. The point is to HINDER fossil fuel burning! By making its apparent cost closer to its true cost! Europe has lots of subsidies for poor people driving very polluting vehicles. But now it’s pretty sure that’s finally going to change. There are non polluting vehicle alternatives, now good enough for massive usage.

DIRECT DEMOCRACY, by opposition to so-called “representative democracy” will reduce taxes. Tax burden in Suisse is 9%, whereas it’s somewhere above 50% in France. OK, France is a war nation. France is the only country which has a full military-industrial complex (with the US, Russia, China)… And is the most bellicose (rightly so) nation on Earth (with the US). But still….

There are plenty of rumors, and assertions, including from Mr. Goodenough, 94 years old, inventor of the modern Lithium Ion battery., that SOLID STATE GLASS BASED LITHIUM batteries have been developed in the lab. Some of this is peer reviewed, and published.

The batteries charge very fast, and don’t burn up. They carry three times the energy density of contemporary Lithium Ion.
The batteries presently used used flammable liquids. So they are armored. Solid state glass will not need this kind of heavy armor.
Latest version of Tesla Model S goes 335 miles. By optimizing, it has gone nearly 1,000 kilometers…

The obvious incentive is to put a worldwide carbon TAX. Actually not really a tax, but a compensatory payment for damage caused by carbon combustion… Anything else is a dubious joke…

Battery energy density has been improving at a 10% clip. That mean a lowering of price per energy unit of 10% a year. Combine that with a carbon tax, and EVs will dominate very soon. A carbon tax will be found to be unavoidable. Why? 12% of the Larsen C iceshelf in Antarctica just broke off today, July 12, 2017. The whole Larsen C, three times as large as Wales, could well follow…
France has decided to make fossil fuel cars unlawful by 2040…

What do you think? Please join the debate! The simplest questions are often the deepest! Cancel reply

Enter your comment here...

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Email (required)(Address never made public)

Name (required)

Website

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out / Change )